Southwest University Park may have set construction record among Triple-A stadiums

Iron worker Hershey Jacquez caught a ball hit during the El Paso Chihuahuas' batting practice April 28 prior to the start of the opening game at Southwest University Park. The stadium's construction may have set a speed record among Triple-A baseball stadiums, officials with the companies that built the stadium reported. ( MARK LAMBIE—EL PASO TIMES )

Construction of El Paso's Downtown baseball stadium may have set a speed record for a Triple-A baseball stadium, officials with the companies that built it believe.

Construction of the $74 million, city-owned stadium, home of the San Diego Padres-affiliated El Paso Chihuahuas, who play in the Triple-A Pacific Coast League, took just under 12 months.

It began with the construction of a retaining wall on May 6, 2013, and ended, except for some cosmetic work, with the opening of the stadium on April 28 — nine days shy of one year. That time doesn't include the several weeks needed to remove rubble from the April 14 implosion of the former City Hall located at the site.

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Vic Kolenc

The next fastest construction time was about 13 1/2 months for both the Round Rock Express' 8,631-seat stadium, opened in April 2000, in the Austin suburb of Round Rock, and the Aces Ballpark for the Reno Aces in Reno, Nev., opened in April 2009, according to a list of 19 Triple-A baseball parks built in the last 28 years. The list was compiled from various sources by Mark Gudenas, vice president of corporate communications for CF Jordan Construction.

It built the stadium in a partnership with Indianapolis-based Hunt Construction Group, which has built several Major League Baseball and NFL stadiums. Hunt Construction Group is not tied to Hunt Companies of El Paso, whose CEO, Woody Hunt, is part of the Chihuahuas' ownership group.

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"I don't think we could have built it any faster than we did. That's about as fast as we could go," said Paul Bauer, executive vice president of commercial operations for CF Jordan. The company last August reformed as Jordan Foster Construction, but continues to build projects started before the reorganization as CF Jordan.

Mark McCaskey, construction manager for Hunt Construction, said he's been involved with construction of two other similar venues in the 15 years he's worked for the company.

"The quickest prior to this was 14 months" for a spring-training stadium for the Philadelphia Phillies in Clearwater, Fla., McCaskey said. " A more normal time frame is 13 to 14 months" for this type of stadium, he said.

Southwest University Park has 7,400 seats, including seats in 23 luxury, upper-level box suites, reported Brad Taylor, the Chihuahuas' general manager. Another 618 people can sit on the grass berm and stand along rails ringing the stadium, which makes 8,018 an official sellout, he said. However, with other standing areas and spaces at two clubhouse buildings in the outfield, the stadium capacity grows. The stadium record so far is 9,859 fans at last Saturday's game. It may be able to hold "10,000 and change," Taylor said.

The unofficial construction record does not include a host of other minor league stadiums built for lower levels of the minor leagues and independent leagues. That includes Cohen Stadium, built for the former Double-A El Paso Diablos. The 9,765-seat stadium in Northeast El Paso opened June 13, 1990, which was about a year from the start of construction in the summer of 1989. An exact construction-start date was not immediately available Tuesday.

However, Cohen Stadium opened with portions of the facility still under construction, including some seating areas, the teams' dressing rooms and the Diablos' offices, recalled Jim Paul, who owned the Diablos at that time. The move into the stadium before it was completed was needed for the team's financial health, he said.

"It took the rest of the season to complete everything. We moved into our offices in late October (of 1990)," Paul said.

Paul said he was impressed with the speed that the Downtown stadium was built. It was more complex construction than done at Cohen, which has a much simpler design, he said.

"To get a stadium like that," with the steel structures, and amenities built in just under a year was "nothing short of a miracle," Paul said.

CF Jordan's Bauer said some cosmetic work was being done at the stadium in the last two weeks, including finishing the brick facade on the right-centerfield building. But all the seats were open and all the stadium amenities were completed by the April 28 opening, he said.

Hunt Construction's McCaskey said more than 1,400 construction workers built the stadium. About 600 workers were there at one time toward the end of construction, he said.

The total hours needed to build the stadium were crammed into a shorter period by extending work days and working on weekends, he said.

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